The initial insertion to Ikon tower proved easy enough. Storms were interfering with radar, and the client appeared to have successfully bribed or distracted security enough for Jomo to safely land on top. According to the mission brief Lillian was being held in a high-level penthouse. If all went well it should be an easy grab. Go in fast. Take out the guards – without a major firefight to alert building security or endanger the girl. Meet Jomo back up top. Then meet up with a Yamatetsu team and hand off Lillian. Jomo would circle to keep the helicopter out of harm’s way and then return for us.
We hit a bit of a snag almost immediately. While anti-air systems and human security were offline the automated drones defending the rooftop were still active. Fortunately they were not particularly high end and straightforward to eliminate.
The trip to the penthouse was easy. No resistance encountered. Clearly they weren’t expecting an intrusion from above without warning. I took a peek through the wall in Astral – to get an advance look at the situation., I could see a girl arguing with a woman, and only three guards.
With such small numbers I decided to go in solo. Figured that’d make the guards less likely to shoot without thinking. The guards quickly trained their weapons on me. But the woman signalled for them to hold their fire. Clearly she was in charge.
She was a shadow-runner named Isane, and she was heading Lillian’s security detail. She immediately knew why we were there. We sized each other up for a moment, and then I asked her if Fuchi was really paying her enough to have it out with a full team of runners when all she had backing her up was a few corpo goons. She laughed, conceded the point, and walked out – telling the guards:
“If you guys want to stay here and bleed, be my guests. Personally I only like earning money if I’m going to live to spend it“.
The guards decided she had the right idea and hurried after – allowing us to take Lillian without a fight.
Lillian told us to call her Lily, and asked what the plan was to get her back to her uncle. She suggested we hurry because “that pighead’ would probably be calling for backup as soon as she was clear.
Unfortunately that’s when we got a call from Jomo and the plan went south. Fuchi was now on alert, their anti-air systems were online, and he couldn’t return for us. We would have to meet him on the ground. There was a large park across the street – he believed he could land there. Fuchi anti-air couldn’t shoot down there without stirring up a lot of heat.
The elevator from the top floor only went down halfway – to a lobby level. Lilly told us the elevators were staggered to keep out the riff-raff. And this level was mostly offices, meeting rooms, and management suites. She seemed strangely familiar with the layout given the situation. Gob and I exchanged a look. There was something more going on than we knew.
Lily passed it off as being a good eavesdropper that the Fuchi guards hadn’t taken seriously. I would’ve pressed further, but she broke into a rather concerning spasm of coughs. And I wasn’t sure, but I thought I caught a glimpse of specks of blood…
The lobby was locked down. Full of irate suits demanding answers from armed guards blocking access to the elevators.
We didn’t risk approaching the guards, but we questioned some of the suits a bit. It seemed all they had been told was that the building was locked down due to a “security issue”.
In a side room we found a few techs playing pool. A little schmoozing and Iz dropping a few names they could contact for “special deals”, and we netted the info that the maintenance elevator was on a separate circuit. Locked down – but it wasn’t actively guarded like the main. And there was nobody watching the server closet with security sweeping the building…
While the rest of us stood lookout Iz hacked into the system. Didn’t take her long to get the override codes for the maintenance elevator. While she was in she also found a dossier on Isane. It seemed Fuchi had some rather nasty plans for her – sending her on increasingly suicidal runs until they could use medical debt to blackmail her into permanent indentured service. Damns corpos never met a line they wouldn’t cross.
The ground level was a busy shopping complex – with the exits locked down and guards scanning the crows. I laid out to Lily that she was to hide the instant anything got tense. She looked like she wanted to say something flip, but held it back. I glanced at Dunk and he nodded. He’d take primary responsibility for her if it came down to a firefight.
The center of the mezanine had a simsense projector – currently just displaying the Fuchi star. Iz pointed out that it was actually a sophisticated holo-projection system – meant for fancy holiday displays, big announcements – that sort of thing. That gave Gob an idea. She grinned, pulled out a chip labelled “Rat party”, and slid it into the console.
The simsense started playing odd frantic techno music, Gob began dancing to it… and then it began projecting a massive horde of rats running through the level. A crowd of frightened patrons stampeded for the exit, sweeping away the overwhelmed door guards. Lilly loved every minute of it, and insisted that Gob promise to send her a copy of the program later.
We slipped out with the rest of the crowds, and met up with Commander Vergara of the Yamatetsu team just outside the park. Lily began questioning him about what exactly the plan was from here, when he looked behind us and cursed.
Fuchi security was spreading out across the street, and a well dressed elf with a sword on his back was walking towards us with Isane in tow. Captain Hoang of Fuchi, here to recover “what we had stolen”. He claimed we had kidnapped Lily… and that she was a Fuchi executive!
As Hoang and Vergara went back and forth, the story slipped out. There was no “Uncle”. Lily had been an elderly VP who had signed up for a Fuchi “rejuvenation program”. But they’d lied to her about the maturity of the technology. It had regressed her far younger than they had intended. And that wasn’t the worst of it.
“I’m dying.”, she said simply. “Not only do I look like a teenager, their treatment gave me a host of auto-immune disorders.“
Fuchi had been unable to stabilize her, and unwilling to allow her to seek other sources of treatment. Couldn’t have anyone outside Fuchi learning any details about their brilliant new treatment… So they’d locked her up in her own penthouse.
She had another long coughing fit, and then laid it out. She’d hired us herself. The mission was exactly as we’d been told. Deliver her to Yamatetsu,
Hoang said he had proof that Yamatetsu had lied to her. They had neither the ability nor the intention to actually help her. They just wanted to use her to reverse engineer Fuchi’s tech. As they argued and offered various evidence, I tossed Isane a datastick with the files that Iz had found. She looked curiously at me, glanced at the active page, and then glared daggers at Hoang.
Finally, Lily had had enough. She screamed – “You both *suck*!” And then she turned to me “Neither of them care about me. I’m just a thing to them. Property to be fought over. Maybe neither one can help me… maybe neither should.” Then she looked straight at me. “What would *you* do?“
It was tough. She couldn’t trust either of them. But she was dying without help. And either corp had more resources than she’d ever have on her own. Finally, I just told her my truth. “I’d rather die free than live out my life as someone’s lab rat“. She stared at me, and then nodded. So I winked at her, pantomimed closing my eyes, and let out a flashbang special as Dunk grabbed her and ran.
And then did my best to keep us in one piece as we ran for cover…
While Fuchi and Yamatetsu cut loose on each other.
Isane clearly considered herself a free agent. She knocked Vergara on his butt, flipped Fuchi a few farewell presents, and took off.
Iz and Gob got pinned down by drones and Fuchi. So Gob kept them blurred and protected while Iz hacked the drone comms…
Then Iz set off self-destruct on the drones while Gob gave Fuchi something else to worry about.
Dunk got squared off with a huge troll in full body armor wielding a minigun. He quickly decided he was out-gunned…
So he made a dash for an upgrade….
And then turned the tables.
I got pinned holding back rocket fire, and then the salvo stopped as Captain Hoang ordered his men to fall back.
He held out his sword and called me out. An Adept. Of course. He knew what I was, and he clearly liked his chances. He raised his defenses as I powered up.
But I’d learned a bit since the last time I’d squared up with an Adept. He might be good at deflecting fire and lightning. He might be able to cut through any shields I could pull up. But he was still just as susceptible as any to pure blunt force trauma.
At which point I’d had *quite* enough, and dispatched the leftovers.
Afterwards Lily was quiet as we met up with Jomo to leave. She asked if I thought any public clinics in Hong Kong might have a chance of helping her. No, I told her honestly. I doubted they could. But she had money. That meant resources. And I just happened to know of a recently unemployed, top end, degenerative disease specialist looking for a new purpose in life off the grid…
Doc Janet jumped at the chance.
Author’s Notes:
Every time you think the Corps can’t sink any lower… they find a new way to be evil. The game didn’t actually present Doc Janet as an option. Telling both corps to suck it just meant a harder fight and Lilly stuck taking her chances with public clinics and the dark web. But it seemed like such a wasted opportunity. Lily and Doc Janet just seemed perfect for each other.
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